


you are like nobody since i love you

by flaneuse



Series: every day you play [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, but it's a happy fic i swear, just the tiniest vaguest mention of past abuse, this is most disgustingly saccharine thing i have ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 09:00:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaneuse/pseuds/flaneuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan washes dishes. Courfeyrac watches. Takes place a few years after graduating university.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are like nobody since i love you

Jehan is standing in their kitchen, washing dishes in the light of the late afternoon. Their kitchen is bright- Jehan wanted white cabinets- and sun-warmed.

Their. Courfeyrac still feels giddy when he thinks about it. They moved in together-finally, Courf thinks- just over a month ago. Their apartment is small but full of open space. Jehan wanted a place with an open floor plan and lots of windows, and Courfeyrac just wanted to make Jehan happy, so he'd done his best.

It's a beautiful place, mostly due to Jehan. He has flowers everywhere: in mason jars on every windowsill, on their bedside table in a chipped vase that Jehan finds at a flea market and just has to have. He ends up braiding most of them into his hair more often than not though, and Courfeyrac can't count the number of times he's woken up with wilted petals and leaves in the sheets. He doesn't really mind though, it's just one more thing he's had to learn while living with Jehan.

Another thing he learns is to be more demonstrative with his emotions. Courfeyrac is a flirt. He's tactile and presses kisses to friends' cheeks without a second thought, so he knows it doesn't mean as much to Jehan when he absentmindedly runs a hand through Jehan's long, sandy curls or presses his thumb into the dip of Jehan's collarbone.

Jehan needs more than that. Jehan doesn't exactly come from a great home. His parents were emotionally abusive, and Courfeyrac suspects somewhat physically as well, though Jehan won't say, and Jehan is the youngest of three children. Somewhere in his pre-pubescent adolescence, Jehan decided that he could fix everything his parents said with words of his own. It's why he's a poet, Courf thinks. And so he responds to words in kind. 

Courfeyrac knows Jehan is self-conscious about this. It makes him feel clingy to need to hear Courfeyrac's love instead of just knowing it, and trusting it. Likewise, silence is the worst punishment that Courfeyrac can inflict upon Jehan, worse than any cruel or cutting words Courfeyrac could spit. And Courfeyrac hates himself when he imposes silence on Jehan, because then Jehan will overcompensate, babbling words of poetry or apology or even anger and desperation until Courfeyrac breaks. They don't usually fight that badly, but it has happened.

Even now, as Courfeyrac stands in the doorway to the kitchen, Jehan is humming something under his breath, unable to be alone in the silence, even a comfortable one.

But all of this, all the concealed cracks in them or their relationship, are not present now. Right now Courfeyrac's chest swells at the thought of what is his. Not just Jehan, though he knows Jehan is his just as much as he is Jehan's. But this apartment as well. He purposefully found a place that was small- too small for all their friends to stay the night, to have their gatherings. That is reserved for Enjolras's apartment, which is large and spacious- though less so since Grantaire secretly moved in.

Courfeyrac grew up with a million brothers and sisters (okay, eight, but that's still a lot) and he's never really had anything of his own. And now that he does, he doesn't want to share it with anyone, save Jehan of course.

He finally moves from his spot in the doorframe and leans against the counter, next to Jehan.

Jehan looks up from where his hands are submerged in suds and he grins so wide Courfeyrac is genuinely afraid his face will crack from the pressure. 

"You're awake," he says brightly. Courfeyrac can feel his face responding in kind, eyes crinkling at the corners in his happiness.

"Yeah," he says. "Work was awful. I don't know why I went to school just to end up working in one."

"You love being a guidance counselor," Jehan accuses.

Courfeyrac shrugs, embarrassed. "Yeah." He admits. He really does. He's good at the administrative aspects, smoothing out problems, and helping develop new programs for the kids. What he hates, however, is registration. Classes just started for the year, and Courfeyrac's office is inundated with bratty kids trying to change teachers and sweet-talk their way into full classes. "But I hate the start of new semesters."

Jehan looks at him sympathetically, but Courfeyrac is pretty sure that Jehan doesn't really know what a stressful day at work is. He's the only employee in a used bookstore owned by an aging man. Jehan practically co-owns the place by now, in all but legal documentation, and he loves it. He wakes up early to open and spends hours among the dusty books, writing poetry and helping the surprising amount of customers they get. The only time Jehan has a stressful day at work is when he has to do extensive inventory, or god forbid, taxes. He doesn't have a head for math, doesn't get why the numbers can't just go the way he wants them to go instead of the way they have to go. 

"I didn't want to wake you," Jehan says. "I just decided to do a little cleaning."

"Well stop," Courfeyrac says petulantly. "I'm awake now."

Jehan rolls his eyes affectionately and makes to ignore him, but Courfeyrac gently takes hold of his wrists with one hand, and with the other reaches for the dishtowel beside the sink. He pulls Jehan's hands out of the water and wipes off the suds.

He keeps his eyes down, missing the way a faint blush mantles Jehan's cheeks, but he knows it's there all the same. He's still a little sleepy, and he just wants to press himself against Jehan, to move slowly and languidly until so much friction brings heat, and release.

When Jehan's hands are clean and dry, Courfeyrac brings one of Jehan's hands to his mouth. He just barely ghosts his mouth over Jehan's knuckles, then turns his hand over and kisses his palm. He tastes fresh, a little bit like the citrus soap he was using on the plates. Jehan is still standing in front of the sink, hem of his shirt wet because he's hopeless at washing dishes. He is silent, but it's a good kind of silence for once.

When Courfeyrac moves to nip at the pale skin of Jehan's wrist, the silence is broken. Jehan gasps, and breathes out unsteadily. Courfeyrac looks up through his thick, dark curls at Jehan, and Jehan has just the barest beginnings of a smile on his face, like he's trying to hide how pleased he is.

"A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body." The words Courfeyrac whispers into the delicate veins that lace their way up Jehan's forearms aren't his own, because he's never been as good with words as he is with touch, but he means them all the same. "I go so far as to think that you own the universe." He whispers that into the crook of Jehan's elbow, and he's rewarded with a slight tremble.

Courfeyrac isn't a poet like Jehan, and he's not as much of a romantic, but he wants to be, and he thinks this poem was written for Jehan alone, waiting for the day someone would speak these words to him. Courfeyrac is glad it's him.

"I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses." Jehan's sleeves are rolled up, but Courfeyrac runs out of skin to kiss, so he moves onto Jehan's throat, latches onto the juncture between shoulder and neck.

"I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees." At that he finally moves to kiss Jehan's lips, but Jehan beats him to it, mostly, he thinks, so that Courfeyrac won't see the way his eyes are filled with tears. Jehan cries a lot; he cries when he's sad and angry, but he cries the most when he's happy, when he's brimming with so much incandescence that he physically cannot hold it in any longer.

Jehan throws his arms around Courfeyrac's neck, and Courfeyrac can feel his slim chest pressed against him, and Courfeyrac sidles closer so that Jehan can wrap a leg around Courfeyrac's waist.

For a moment, Courfeyrac is frozen, and breathless. His heart feels tight, and he knows it's because it's no longer his own, because Jehan is there, being carried to every part of him on blood vessels, rushing to fill his body with a foreign presence.

His body is no longer his own and he doesn't mind it. Instead, he welcomes it, picks Jehan up with ease and carries him to their bedroom, their bedroom, and they're both laughing, dizzy and reckless with what they feel for each other.

**Author's Note:**

> There will me much more in this verse, and idk if I'm happy about that yet or not (read: these assholes are ruining my life).
> 
> The poem that Courfeyrac recites is Everyday You Play, by Pablo Neruda, who is my favorite poet. Title and title of the verse are also taken from that poem.
> 
> I should do one with "I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair," now that I think of it. That would be a whooooole different fic.
> 
> EDIT: I forgot to say, I'm desperate for fanart of this. Like I've never needed fanart of my own fic before but I just have this perfect image of Jehan standing in front of the sink and Courfeyrac with his head bent over Jehan's wrist and ughghghghgh if anyone wants to draw it or show this fic to someone who will draw it I WON'T COMPLAIN OKAY
> 
> and my tumblr is over on my profile but it can't hurt to reiterate: grantairer.tumblr.com
> 
> holla
> 
> Send comments/questions/concerns/and maybe even prompts over to grantairer.tumblr.com xoxo seriously, come talk to me, I love to hear from you :)


End file.
